We are proud members of…

Episode 78 – Back on form!

With your hosts, Liz and Mike! This week we are talking about cultural differences between gamers and games all around the world. Liz talks about a new book she has been reading, and gives you her thoughts on it. Mike then goes ahead and talks about the latest games he has been playing thanks to the steam sale. We both cradle our wallets and cry about how much we have spent in said sales…

Liz’s Topic

Group topic

From Scott Gladstein at Little Red Goblin Games:
“It’s always interesting to me when you guys talk about the UK gaming scene, it’s just not something we get over here (though it seems like 99% similar). I just read an interesting article on a European/American guy who was in Japan and played a game of translated Pathfinder. Might be something fun for you Podcast. (Hell, the topic of how cultures treat Table Top RPGs could be a book in it’s own right!)”

I haven’t been out of the boarders of the north-western hemisphere or experienced gaming in other countries, though it doesn’t surprise me that gamers in Japan are interested in games like Pathfinder and Shadowrun. If you look at a lot of anime out there, you’ll see many titles based in medieval settings – Full Metal Alchemist, Sacred Blacksmith, Mononoke, Bastard!!!, and Claymore – along with a bunch of titles based in sci-fi fantasy – Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, and Evangelion for a few.

While you would probably assume that the eastern RPGs are all ninjas and samurai, similar to how the majority of western games are knights and pirates, it seems much more that they are more interested in the medieval setting that originally imagined. Though, I won’t deny that I would have come to the same conclusions without delving deeper into the thought, thinking that an asian culture would be drawn more to games like L5R than D&D.

Ai

I’ve played in different countries and in different languages and in my experience, it doesn’t matter at all – the only thing that matters are the people. Some people like to just go for a good old dungeon crawl (character background? P’tsh!), some people spend hours putting together the soundtrack for their vampire game and some people refuse to play shadowrun without having produced the necessary blueprints for the buildings and car license plates that will be relevant. To me, gaming styles are as geography or culture dependent as people’s favourite colours.